In general, an optical connection can be made between two fibers by installing connection end fittings on the ends of the respective fibers, and then bringing said end fittings together in a suitable connector equipment. In each end fitting, the end face of a fiber is rectified and suitably positioned for providing accurate optical connection when two connection fittings are brought together. One means for positioning the end of the fiber is described in published French Pat. No. 2 275 787 and in its certificate of addition published under Ser. No. 2 316 611. This positioning means uses a set of three cylindrical rods which are kept in contact with the fiber placed in an inner channel defined by the three rods. In order to connect a plurality of fibers in one cable with the fibers in another cable, said positioning means is constituted by a central rod having a ring of peripheral rods pressed against each other and the central rod, with the optical fibers being placed in respective ones of the channels defined by the central rod and pairs of the peripheral rods. The fibers of two cables are then simultaneously connected in pairs by bringing together two cable ends having their fibers fitted in such positioning means.
Such optical fiber cable ends can only be used for simultaneously connecting all the fibers in two identical cables. They do not engage individual connections to be made to one or more selected fibers such as would enable a selection of the fibers in one cable (varying from a few to all the fibers depending on requirements) to be connected to corresponding fibers in another cable or to other equipment. Such equipment could be means for regenerating or opto-electronically converting the data being conveyed by each fiber, or else it could be means for performing measurements and tests on the fibers. Further, when two cables are interconnected by such optical fiber cable ends, a defect in the connection between any one pair of fibers will lead to the connection between all the other pairs of fibers being interrupted while the defect is being repaired. Repairing such a faulty link is in itself difficult, and it is often impossible to perform a repair on the faulty fiber alone. In general, one of the cables needs to be cut and its cut end then needs new end fittings installing on all of its fibers.
Preferred embodiments of the present invention provide a cable header which enables any or all of the fibers of an optical cable to be individually and independently connected to optical fibers in other cables and/or equipment while avoiding the above-mentioned drawbacks of prior connection devices.